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The turn of the millennium has not been an uplifting time for commuters, especially the vast majority of us who travel to work by car. We’re spending more time alone in automobiles covering longer distances, most often to reach vast parking lots in soulless suburban office parks.
These observations, based on Commuting in America III, a landmark study released in October 2006, are backed up by stats like these: From 1990 to 2000, there was a net increase of 30 million vehicles on American roads. Nearly 13 million more people drove to work alone in 2000 than in 1990, and the number of commuters who drive an hour or more to work increased by almost half. And overall, more workers now commute from the city to the suburbs than the other way around.
If there is a bright spot in the report, it’s the potential for workers of any age to make life and career tradeoffs that take them off the track of commuting malaise and position them for a better quality of life -- for example, by choosing to live in an adequate house that’s reasonably close to work rather than a middle-class palace two hours away.
Technology Notwithstanding, We Still Drive to Work
Despite advances in telecommunications and other technologies that should make work more virtual, “in many, many respects, it’s a world that’s more dependent on transportation than ever,” says Alan Pisarski, an independent consultant and author of the study, which was published by the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. “The younger folks are the ones who really bear the brunt of our congestion problems.”
Workers have to take action if they want to improve their commuting lot, because America’s transportation infrastructure will continue to groan under a population of 300 million.
“There are just going to be more people, so I don’t see commuting improving greatly,” says Rita Walston, general manager of Telework Consortium, a telecommuting advocacy group in Herndon, Virginia. “I hope we can use strategies that will keep things from getting worse.”
Transit Systems of Limited Value in a Nation of Suburbs
With so many Americans living and working in the suburbs, “rail can work, but it’s not going to be able to carry large numbers of people, because there aren’t lots of people who both live near a station and work near a station,” says Michael Kuby, associate professor in the School of Geographical Sciences at Arizona State University in Tempe.
Americans’ ever-rising materialistic expectations are helping to drive the growth of far-flung suburbs, according to Kuby. “It’s the workers who want new houses, big houses and cheap houses that are flocking to these incredibly distant suburbs, and they’re assuming that some new form of transportation will be developed for them.”
Often, those assumptions prove wrong. A more prudent approach for workers is to make the availability of transit a gating factor in searches for housing and work. Working folks should consider “transit-oriented development, where you can walk to transit,” says Pisarski.
Federal and Local Efforts to Improve Transit for Commuters
“With the change in control of Congress, there might be more emphasis on transit,” says Larry Filler, president of TransitCenter, a New York City public-transit advocacy group. Still, “the demand for transit resources greatly outpaces funding on the federal side.”
But commuters can find hope in regional and local efforts to improve public transit. “There have been more local efforts over the past 10 years than ever before,” says Filler. “More localities are passing initiatives to raise money to build or add on to transit systems.”
Pisarski has these parting tips for young people who aspire to a life where 20 percent of their waking hours isn’t spent in transit:
• “Think in terms of the total cost of commuting plus housing.”
• “You want to live in a place that will allow you to change employers two or three times” without changing careers.
• “Consider those careers where eventually you can work from home.”
After all, who can argue with a zero commute?